Pet Cemetery

01.05.11

Two Million Dead Fish in MD

The animal death toll keeps climbing: first it was thousands of blackbirds and fish in Arkansas and Louisiana, now 2 million more fish are dead in the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Most of the casualties are adult spot and juvenile croakers, believed to be killed by "cold-water stress." The air temperature in the bay area was 4.3 degrees lower than average last month. Maryland environmental officials say croakers are especially susceptible to colder waters, but that they have usually left the bay by now. This fish kill is "very large," but it's not the largest ever: 15 million fish died in 1976.